Roman Republican governors of Gaul
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Roman Republican governorsThe English word "governor" is used here to encompass Latin-derived terminology including consul, praetor, dictator, proconsul, propraetor and "promagistrate" to refer generally to an individual in charge of an administrative area; the Latin word gubernator meant "helmsman, pilot." of Gaul were assigned to the province of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) or to Transalpine Gaul, the Mediterranean region of present-day France also called the Narbonensis, though the latter term is sometimes reserved for a more strictly defined area administered from Narbonne (ancient Narbo).The overview presented here relies primarily on A.L.F. Rivet, Gallia Narbonensis: Southern France in Roman Times (London, 1988), pp. 39–53, and Charles Ebel, Transalpine Gaul: The Emergence of a Roman Province (Brill, 1976); other sources include E. Badian, "Notes on Provincia Gallia in the Late Republic," in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire offerts à André Piganiol (Paris, 1966), vol. 2; J.F. Drinkwater, Roman Gaul: The Three Provinces, 58 B.C.–A.D. 260 (Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 1–34; and Christian Goudineau, César et la Gaule (Paris: Errance, 1990). Information not otherwise cited in the non-tabular portions of this article represents a consensus among these sources. Latin Gallia can also refer in this period to greater Gaul independent of Roman control, covering the remainder of France, Belgium, and parts of the Netherlands and Switzerland, often distinguished as Gallia ComataGallia Comata is usually translated as the pejorative-sounding "Hairy Gaul," referring to the preference among Celts for longer hair and facial hair in contrast to the close-shorn Romans. Comatus, crinitus and similar Latin adjectives meaning "long-haired, having an abundance of hair" were regularly applied to deities such as Apollo and Dionysus, and the disparaging quality of the epithet can perhaps be exaggerated in translation. and including regions also known as Celtica (Κελτική in Strabo and other Greek sources), Aquitania, Belgica, and Armorica (Brittany). To the Romans, Gallia was a vast and vague geographical entity distinguished by predominately Celtic inhabitants, with "Celticity" a matter of culture as much as speaking gallice ("in Celtic").
The Latin word provincia (plural provinciae) originally referred to a task assigned to an official or to a sphere of responsibility within which he was authorized to act,During the Late Republic, for instance, two provinciae assigned at different times to Pompeius Magnus were operations against the pirates and oversight of the grain supply (cura annonae); these were not confined to a geographic region. including a military command attached to a specified theater of operations. The assignment of a provincia defined geographically thus did not always imply annexation of the territory under Roman rule. Provincial administration as such originated in efforts to stabilize an area in the aftermath of war, and only later was the provincia a formal, pre-existing administrative division regularly assigned to promagistrates. The provincia of Gaul therefore began as a military command, at first defensive and later expansionist.John Richardson, "The Administration of the Empire," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1994), vol. 9, pp. 564–565 [https://books.google.com/books?id=3yUkzNLiY4oC&dq=%22PROVINCES+AND+PROVINCIAE%3B+THE+ORIGINS+OF+THE+SYSTEM%22&pg=RA1-PA564 online] et passim, especially p. 580. Independent GaulLe Gaule indépendante is the subtitle of volume 2 (1908) of Camille Jullian's monumental Histoire de la Gaule, referring to Gaul outside Roman rule at the time of Caesar's conquest. was invaded by Julius Caesar in the 50s BC and organized under Roman administration by Augustus; see Roman Gaul for Gallic provinces in the Imperial era.
Early Republican wars with the Gauls
File:Umbria et Picenum.JPG, where Rome established its first colony on territory previously held by Celts]]
The early history of Romano-Celtic relations begins during a period of Gallic expansionism on the Italian Peninsula, with the capture of Rome by Gauls in 390 BC (or more likely 387) and the suspiciously fortuitousOn the manipulation of the story, see J.H.C. Williams, "Myth and History II: The Sack of Rome," in Beyond the Rubicon: Romans and Gauls in Republican Italy (Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 140–184, limited preview [https://books.google.com/books?id=RPj_FkEeVO4C&dq=%22The+sack+of+Rome+by+the+Gauls%22+intitle%3ABeyond+intitle%3Athe+intitle%3ARubicon&pg=PA140 online:] "much of the material is clearly legendary, if not exactly fictional" (p. 141). rescue of the city by Camillus after the Romans had already surrendered. The Gauls who fought at the Battle of the Allia and captured Rome are most often identified as Senones. Over the next hundred years, the Gauls appear in classical sources as allies of the Etruscans and Samnites, but sometimes as invaders. Battles occur on Roman territory and on that held by Etruscans; by Italic peoples who later become Roman allies (socii) willingly or under compulsion; and by the Gauls themselves. The defeat of the Senonian stronghold Sena (or Senigallia) in 283 leads to nearly fifty years of mostly peaceful relations between Romans and Celts.
The accounts of these early military conflicts, written by Greek and Roman historians, are complicated by overlays of legend and moralizing. Although stereotypes of impetuous barbarians prevail, among the various historians the Gauls are sometimes portrayed as acting with honour, bravery, or respect, even in the face of Roman treachery. A priest named Fabius Dorsuo is said to have been allowed by the Gauls to carry out religious rituals during the siege of Rome;For the passage from Livy (both Latin and English), see Emmanuele Curti, "From Concordia to the Quirinal: Notes on Religion and Politics in Mid-Republican/Hellenistic Rome," in Religion in Archaic and Republican Rome and Italy: Evidence and Experience (Routledge, 2000), p. 85 [https://books.google.com/books?id=kZY__iHXOjQC&dq=%22Fabius+Dorsuo%22&pg=PA85 online.] three Fabii occasioned outrage on both sides when they abused their responsibilities as ambassadors to the Gauls, and were even accused of having brought about the attack through their actions.Livy 5.36.4–11; Plutarch, Camillus 17; Appian, Celtic Wars frgs. 2–3; Dionysius Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 13.12.1; these sources identify the Fabii with the generals who lost the Battle of the Allia (see Williams, Beyond the Rubicon, p. 151, especially note 42). Summary of the incident by David Rankin, Celts and the Classical World (Routledge, 1987, reprinted 1999), pp. 104–105 [https://books.google.com/books?id=fdqk4vXqntgC&dq=%22three+ambassadors%2C+members+of+the+family+of+the+Fabii%22&pg=PA104 online.] Romans cast themselves as underdogs in hand-to-hand combat with physically superior Celts, to such an extent that guile or divine aid is seen as the most likely explanation when a Roman manages to win: T. Manlius earns the nickname (cognomen) Torquatus by outsmarting a Gaul in single combat and stripping him of his torque; M. Valerius Corvus got his cognomen when a divinely-sent raven (corvus) distracted his opponent. Regardless of factuality, these stories contributed to the fashioning of a distinctly Roman identity in relation to a Gallic "Other."Williams explores the relation of myth and history throughout Beyond the Rubicon; see also Rankin, Celts and the Classical World; Jonathan Barlow, "Noble Gauls and Their Other in Caesar’s Propaganda," in Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments (Classical Press of Wales, 1998). The following account of Roman attitudes toward the Celts derives from Williams and Rankin.
As the only foreign enemy to have taken the city, the Gauls represented a "Celtic threat" that loomed large in the Roman imagination for more than 300 years.On the late-3rd century in particular, see Briggs L. Twyman, "Metus gallicus: The Celts and Roman Human Sacrifice," Ancient History Bulletin 11 (1997) 1–11. Cicero could still malign Catiline in 63 BC with an accusation of plotting the overthrow of the government with the aid of Celtic armed forces.Cicero, In Catilinam 3.4 and 9; Williams, Beyond the Rubicon, pp. 92 and 177–179; E.G. Hardy, "The Catilinarian Conspiracy in Its Context: A Re-Study of the Evidence," Journal of Roman Studies 7 (1917), pp. 199–221: "He describes a plot for installing Gauls on the ashes of Rome. Cicero employed these 'terminological inexactitudes' so often that he perhaps came to believe that they were true" (p. 220). The fear and dread of inferiority engendered by the Gallic sack of Rome became enshrined in Roman foreign policyUnderstood loosely as an unstated, customary approach to international affairs. Erich S. Gruen maintains that a true "foreign policy" depends on the existence of a professional diplomatic corps, which the Roman Republic lacked; see The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (University of California Press, 1984), p. 203 [https://books.google.com/books?id=EkdCokrrp4gC&dq=%22Rome+had+nothing+resembling+a+diplomatic+corps%22&pg=PA203 online.] and myth as a virtually infinite quest to secure an ever-larger periphery; in his war against the Gauls and invasion of Celtic Britain, Caesar as proconsul could present himself as pursuing the old grudge to what Romans saw as literally the end of the world.In addition to Williams, Beyond the Rubicon, see P.C.N. Stewart, "Inventing Britain: The Roman Creation and Adaptation of an Image," Britannia 26 (1995) 1–10; Ralf Urban, Gallia rebellis: Erhebungen in Gallien im Spiegel antiker Zeugnisse (Franz Steiner Verlag, 1999), Historia 129.
=''Dictatores'' and Celtic Italy=
The following table shows Early Republican military commanders against the Gauls on the Italian peninsula. These men were granted imperium as consuls and praetors, the highest elected offices in Roman government, and also as dictatores. The dictatorship most likely originated as a military office;"The tradition about the invention of the dictatorship is confused," notes Andrew Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 109–113 [https://books.google.com/books?id=yaFPohP2lB8C&dq=dictator+%22early+republic%22&pg=PA109 online], in part because the office was situational. This discussion of the dictatorship also relies on T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 38–43, who describes the office as having "primitive, anomalous status." both Cicero and Livy thought that its purpose was to ensure strategic oversight and unified command in wartime — the dictator is he who gives the word (dictum). The Roman custom that a commander had to lay down arms outside the city limits (pomerium) before entering also suggests how the powers of the dictator originally might have been restricted within the civil realm;Fred K. Drogula, "Imperium, potestas, and the pomerium in the Roman Republic," Historia 56 (2007) 419–452. "How absolute the power of the dictator was, seems to have been an issue which was determined not by statute or by any clear rule, but by casuistry": Lintott, Constitution p. 112. he could not, for instance, override the people's tribunes.For this reason, Sulla during his dictatorship in the late 80s BC took steps to restrict tribunicial powers, and one of the ways Caesar provoked outrage was by expelling two tribunes from office. The dictator was nominated by a consul,A law was passed to allow the interrex Lucius Flaccus to nominate Sulla in 82 BC; in 49 BC, a similar law permitted M. Lepidus to nominate Caesar; on rare (or doubtful) occasions, a dictator might be elected; see Lintott, Constitution, p. 110. not elected, and he was expected to step aside when the job was done, with a limit of six months considered standard.Mommsen thought that the dictator had to step aside when the nominating magistrate's own term ended. In contrast to the annual magistracies set by the religio-astronomical calendar, this six-month term coincides with the usual length of the military campaigning season, given its seasonality in antiquity. In 332 (see table), for instance, a dictator was nominated specifically in anticipation of a Gallic war, which in the event never materialized. In 360, a dictator had been named to quell the Celtic crisis (Gallicus tumultus); one of the consuls that year had the specific task (provincia) of dealing with the Gallic alliance based in Tibur (modern-day Tivoli). Both commanders succeeded in their missions, but only the constitutionally elected consul was granted the honour of a triumph. The dictatores continued most often to have a military role into the Middle Republic, but when Sulla revived the office in the late 80s, it had fallen into disuse for more than a century, in part because a system had developed for assigning provincial commands with administrative oversight as a result of permanent annexations of territories.
==Table of commanders in Italo-Gallic wars==
Annexing Cisalpine Gaul
File:Shepherd-c-026-027.jpg, Transpadane Gaul, Venetic Gaul, and Cispadane Gaul, with the Ager Gallicus on the Adriatic coast]]
{{Campaignbox Roman-Gallic Wars}}
The Roman takeover of Cisalpine Gaul, or "Gaul on this side of the Alps," was a gradual process of long duration. "It was in Liguria, in the Celtic lands of the Po Valley, and in Venetia and Histria," notes Fergus Millar in his classic essay "The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C.," "that the Romans of this period exhibited a consistent and unremitting combination of imperialism, militarism, expansionism, and colonialism."Fergus Millar, "The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C.," as reprinted in Rome, the Greek World, and the East (University of North Carolina Press, 2002), p. 110, originally published in Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984) 1–19. Millar distinguishes among these four -isms: "Roman imperialism is too crude a term for what we can observe between 200 and 151 B.C. Roman dominance was felt everywhere, from Spain to Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Ankara; Roman militarism was demonstrated consistently in northern Italy and Spain, at various periods in Greece and Macedonia (200–194, 191–187–171–168), and for one period of three years in Asia Minor (190–188). Roman colonialism was still confined, with one very marginal exception, to the Italian peninsula" (pp. 109–110). Although sources for much of the period are sketchy, with the exception of Polybius,Livy's work, essential for the history of the Early Republic, survives only in fragments and digest form for much of this period. it becomes nearly impossible to argue that Rome acted only defensively: "Rome's wars in the north of the Italian peninsula"—not only against the Gauls, but the Etruscans and the Italic peoples—"were largely of her own devising."E.S. Staveley, "Rome and Italy in the Early Third Century," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1989, 2002 reprint), vol. 7, p. 431 [https://books.google.com/books?id=3qXuay2SEtIC&dq=%22were+largely+of+her+own+devising%22&pg=PA431 online.] Provincial assignments and military actions involving Liguria, Venetia, and Istria (Histria) are included in the table below when related directly to Gaul.
=The ''Ager Gallicus''=
The defeat of the Senones and Boii in the late 280s had brought the occupation of the Ager Gallicus along the Adriatic and the establishment of the first Roman colony in previously Gallic territory. The ager Gallicus, formerly in the possession of the Senones, was the land between Ariminum and Picenum, and was the first territory acquired by Rome in Cispadane Gaul.
Since that time, good relations between Rome and its Gallic neighbors had extended into a fifth decade. Polybius says that the lex Flaminia agraria of 232, which provided for the distribution of land in the Ager Gallicus to Roman citizens, threatened the existing peace with Gauls such as the Boii who bordered the ager.Daniel J. Gargola, Lands, Laws & Gods: Magistrates & Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome (University of North Carolina Press, 1995), pp. 104–105 [https://books.google.com/books?id=kTXkGnbHLHYC&dq=%22ager+Gallicus%22&pg=PA105 online] and Rachel Feig Vishnia, State, Society, and Popular Leaders in Mid-Republican Rome, 241-167 B.C. (Routledge, 1996), pp. 29ff. [https://books.google.com/books?id=RfusyDBQBYAC&dq=%22Polybius%27+allegation+may+indicate+the+main+reason%22&pg=PA29 online.] Ostensibly, this land had been ager publicus, that is, owned by the public; in practice, it was exploited for the benefit of the senatorial elite, who objected vehemently to the redistribution program.
The first Roman colonies in northern Italy were established in 218, but not until the end of the 2nd century could the Romans claim firm control of the region all the way to the Alps.Andrew Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (Routledge, 1993), pp. 6 and 12. After a series of decisive victories against Gauls and Ligurians in 200, provinciae pertaining to the Gauls take on an increasingly diplomatic and administrative character.
The province of Cisalpina at first was one of the military commands that might be assigned to the two consuls and six praetors before the territory had been annexed.E.S. Staveley, "Rome and Italy in the Early Third Century," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1970), vol. 7, part 2, p. 431 [https://books.google.com/books?id=3qXuay2SEtIC&dq=%22If+further+evidence+be+needed+that+Rome%27s+wars+in+the+north%22&pg=PA431 online.] A military command (imperium) was sometimes extended past a magistrate's one-year term of elected office for a year or two (see prorogatio); this prorogation allowed Rome to maintain continuity in ongoing military operations under experienced officers while still controlling and limiting the number of individuals authorized to hold command.Andrew Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 1999.), p. 113 ff.; T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 625–626.
After major military operations had ceased, the commander's abilities as an administrator were put to the test. In the absence of an ideal leader who was both a bold and experienced general and a masterful diplomat and meticulous administrator, provincial governorships were liable to exploitive practices of self-enrichment that damaged the legitimacy of Roman rule. Governed peoples had recourse through Roman courts for unjust acts committed against them by their governors, but because the case had to be presented by a Roman citizen, usually a patronus with a family history of relations to the offended parties, these prosecutions were almost always politicized.The case brought against Marcus Fonteius and defended by Cicero is an example from Transalpine Gaul; it may be difficult not to see the legitimacy of the charges made on behalf of the Gauls, but Cicero was nevertheless able to obtain an acquittal. As the number of citizens in a province increased, so too their connections to powerful families in Rome and the network of mutual obligations from which they could expect to benefit.
By the late Republic, Cisalpina of all the Roman provinces had the greatest number of citizens in its population;There have been attempts to show that Catullus, from present-day Verona in Cisalpina, was of Celtic ethnicity; the Calpurnius Piso who was a consul in 58 BC, an Epicurean, and the last father-in-law of Julius Caesar, was accused by Cicero of having an Insubrian Celt as a grandfather—on the debunking of which see Ronald Syme, "Who Was Decidius Saxa?" p. 130. Regardless of factual basis, indicates the degree to which Cisalpina represented a mix of the two cultures. although the difficulties of travel might stand in the way of participating in Roman elections, northern Italy offered significant blocs of voters for Romans who cultivated their clients well.Lily Ross Taylor, Party Politics in the Age of Caesar (University of California Press, 1949), p. 58 [https://books.google.com/books?id=CExfyh36ZGwC&dq=%22Cisalpine+Gaul%2C+the+only+Roman+province%22&pg=PA58 online.] Popularist politicians in particular were associated with the cause of extending citizenship to the disenfranchised, and were accused by the conservative oligarchs of doing so merely to build loyalty and acquire votes. Toward the end of the Social War in 89, all free men in Cisalpine Gaul south of the Po River (Latin Padus)—that is, Cispadane Gaul, "Gaul on this side of the Po"—had become entitled to Roman citizenship.
Many Transpadanes, or residents of Cisalpina north of the Po,Transpadanus means "across the Po" (Padus). were Romans or held Latin rights, but the issue of blanket citizenship was not fully resolved until 49, with the passage of a law by Caesar.Andrew Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (Routledge, 1993), pp. 67 [https://books.google.com/books?id=1LM9AAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Cisalpine+Gaul+but+this+derives+from+the+special+political+conditions%22&pg=PA67 online], 112, 162. After 42 BC, Cisalpina was so thoroughly incorporated into the Roman system of government that it was no longer assigned as a province; the region was administered directly from Rome and by the same forms of municipal government as the rest of the Italian peninsula.Werner Eck, "Provincial Administration and Finance," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 2000), vol. 11, p. 345 [https://books.google.com/books?id=mhNUGgG2eacC&dq=%22In+42+B.C.+it+was+decided+to+send+no+more+governors+to+Gallia+Cisalpina%22&pg=PA345 online.]
In Latin sources before ca. 100 BC, Gallia is a flexible word that refers often to Cisalpine Gaul alone, but sometimes to Gaul as an indefinite totality and sometimes in a very limited sense to only Cispadane Gaul. The following table lists consuls, praetors and promagistrates—no dictatores are recorded against the Gauls—assigned to Gallia until 125 BC, when the administration of Cisalpina should be considered in light of actions in Transalpine Gaul. After 197 BC, commanders of praetorian rank are no longer assigned to Liguria or against the Gauls; military operations in northern Italy are usually conducted by both consuls during this period, or one consul if another war was being waged abroad.T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 2000), vol. 1, p. 200.
==Table of Gallic ''provinciae'' through 126 BC==
Transalpine Gaul
File:Via Domitia (Narbonne).jpg on display in modern Narbonne (ancient Narbo)]]
Gallia Transalpina at first could refer broadly to "Gaul on the other side of the Alps," but after the conquest of Mediterranean Gaul in the 120s BC came to specify the Roman province in the south (Provincia nostra, "our Province," hence Provence). Because the term Transalpina had a history of usage in the more general sense, the province was often called the Narbonensis, after the colonial headquarters in Narbonne. The establishment of the Transalpine province is usually dated to the military victories of Domitius Ahenobarbus and Quintus Fabius Maximus over the Arverni and Allobroges in the 120s, and the refounding of Narbo as a Roman colony in 118 BC. Evidence is scant, however, that Transalpina was assigned as a province over the next 15 years, until the Cimbrian invasions compelled the Romans to take action. There may have been no regular administration until after the victories of Gaius Marius in 101 BC. The historical record of Transalpine promagistracies continues to be sketchy until the 60s, with a few exceptions such as Valerius Flaccus's tenure ca. 85–81 BC, one of the longest known Gallic governorships.
During the Republic, the provinces of Cisalpina and Transalpina were governed sometimes jointly, sometimes separately; Caesar was allotted both provinces, and in his first five-year term divided his time between military campaigns in TransalpinaTransalpina in its most inclusive sense of "Gaul on the other side of the Alps"; with very few exceptions (some skirmishing with the Helvetii in 58 possibly in Allobrogian territory, incursions by troops sent by Vercingetorix into Helvian territory in 52 BC), all fighting during the Gallic Wars took place outside the borders of the Narbonensis. and administrative duties in Cisalpina during the winter months.Caesar was also proconsul of Illyricum, and Cisalpina was thus a central location. One factor in the Roman drive to control southern Gaul had been the desire for a secure land route to the Iberian Peninsula (Hispania), where the Celtiberians (Celtiberi) also spoke a form of Celtic or a language closely related to it, with at least some cultural similarities to the other Celts.Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, "Celtiberia and Cisalpine Gaul," in The Celts: A History (Boydell Press, 2003), pp. 72ff. Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior had been administered as provinces since 197 BC as a result of the Second Punic War, which also had ignited the first direct if postponed Roman interest in southern Gaul;For more on cultural connections in the region, see Occitania. the first Roman colonies had also been established in Cisalpine Gaul during this time.Andrew Lintott, Imperium Romanum, p. 6.
In the table following, when a governor is listed for Cisalpina only, he may also have governed Transalpina in the absence of another known official, and vice versa; at times, however, Hispania Citerior and Transalpina were governed jointly instead. Political and military factors determined whether and how these provincial assignments were combined, including shifting alliances among those governed, strategic considerations during the Social Wars and Roman civil wars, the availability of experienced administrators and commanders, and jockeying to maintain a balance of power among Roman oligarchs. Following the civil wars of the 40s, Narbonensis seems to refer specifically to the established province in southern Gaul, while Transalpina may include new territories claimed through Caesar's military campaigns in formerly independent Celtica and formally organized later by Augustus.
=Table of Gallic governors 125–42 BC=
Triumviral years
In the tumultuous period following Caesar's death, during the ascendancy of the Second Triumvirate, Gaul was acted upon by various commanders, until M. Vipsanius Agrippa arrived as proconsul in 39 to quell unrest. Scholars have paid relatively scant attention to the question of why Gaul failed to take advantage of Rome's disarray during the civil wars of the 40s and 30s to revolt in toto; it is sometimes assumed that the population was too decimated to take a stand, but the numbers in so far as they are known make this unlikely. In 57, for instance, Caesar had reported that the Nervii had 50,000 men of fighting age; he supposed that only 500 survived the Battle of the Sabis, but five years later they were able to provide a force of 5,000 men.Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 2.4, 7.75. Although the figures may be unreliable in the absolute, they indicate the resilience of the population. In 52, after the surrender of the pan-Gallic army at Alesia, Caesar had granted amnesty to the armies of both the Arverni and Aedui, each of which he estimated at 30,000 men, and sent them home.Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 7.75, 88. After the failure of Vercingetorix's strategy of massing allied forces, the surviving Gallic leaders had continued to wage a guerrilla war with some success and hope of attrition, until Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) came to an arrangement with the last Celtic king known to retain his independence, Commius of the Atrebates, who had led the relief forces at Alesia.Aulus Hirtius, Bellum Gallicum 8.48 et passim. Over the course of the following two decades, Gallic losses in the 50s would have been replaced by the maturation of the male population, while available Roman forces were largely occupied by fighting each other. The Gauls may have imagined that the Romans would weaken themselves in civil war to such an extent that a rebellion was moot or not worth the trouble; Caesar reports that the Gauls kept themselves informed about political events in Rome that might affect them.Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 7.1. In general on the Romanization of Gaul, see Greg Woolf, Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge University Press, 1998), particularly chapter 1, "On Romanization."
In 44 BC, Antony was the proconsul assigned to both Cisalpina and Transalpina; his ability to come to an understanding with the Gauls, as demonstrated by his arrangements with Commius, is further indicated by the willingness of a Sequanian leader to execute Decimus Brutus at his behest. This BrutusDecimus Brutus should not be confused with his more famous cousin Marcus, who never served under Caesar during the Gallic Wars, but who was a governor in Cisalpina during Caesar's dictatorship. had served in Gaul under Caesar from 56 (or earlier). Although his experience in Gallic relations exceeded that of his peer Antony, whose earliest appearance in Caesar's account of the war is around the time of the Battle of Alesia, Celtic antipathy may have been spurred by Brutus's betrayal of Caesar, given the high value Celts placed on loyalty to their sworn leaders.Raimund Karl, "*butacos, *uossos, *geistlos, *ambaχtos: Celtic Socio-economic Organisation in the European Iron Age," Studia Celtica 40 (2006).
Broughton lists no Gallic governors after Agrippa through 31, the year with which The Magistrates of the Roman Republic concludes. Augustus began to reorganize Transalpine Gaul with its newly conquered territories into administrative regions in 27 BC.Woolf, Becoming Roman, p. 39.
See also
Selected bibliography
- A.L.F. Rivet, Gallia Narbonensis: Southern France in Roman Times (London, 1988)
- Charles Ebel, Transalpine Gaul: The Emergence of a Roman Province (Brill, 1976)
- T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 2000)
- Andrew Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 1999)
- Unless otherwise noted, the sources for promagistracies in Gaul and their dates is T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (New York: American Philological Association, 1951, 1986), vols. 1–3, abbreviated MRR1, MRR2 and MRR3.